Language Development
How Animals Move-
Talk about how your child’s favourite animals move (bunnies/hop, horses/run, turtles /crawl) use pictures of animals if available. Encourage your child to move like their favourite animals. Provide cards with movement words for your child to copy. Encourage your child to copy movement words with a marker: run, walk, hop, jump
Social-Emotional Development
Calming Strategy
Intentional breathing strategies bring oxygen to the brain to help your child focus and remain calm. Let’s try the Helicopter Calming Strategy. Stretch your arms to each side to make helicopter blades. Gently twist side to side as far as you can and slowly inhale and exhale with each twist. Repeat a few times.
Physical Literacy
Obstacle Course
Set up an obstacle course with your child using pillows, blocks, boxes, etc. You can include stations for balance, jumping, crawling and tossing or rolling a ball at a target.
Change it up by encouraging your child to navigate the course backwards or by pretending to be an animal (for example: hopping like a bunny, crawling like a turtle).
Cognitive Development
Creating Patterns
Materials-multiple items in two colors (rocks and sticks, buttons, pom poms, paper squares, etc.) Encourage your child to create a pattern with the colored objects. Challenge: If your child is an expert at patterns using two colors, try patterns using three colors. Look for patterns around the house, use paint or crayons to create patterns, make fruit skewers with two fruits arranged in a pattern.
Creative Activity
- Draw a treasure map
- Make animal tracks in play dough using small toy animals
- Pulled String Painting-see how the string allows the paint to travel across the paper
Additional Resources
Article: Follow the link below to read more on Helping Kids Cope with the COVID-19 Pandemic by Dana Sparks.
https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/helping-kids-cope-with-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Learning at Home Toddler Week 19
